Brazil & Southern Cone - December 2012 (ISSN 1741-4431)

Paraguay is just weeks away from the first party primaries to select presidential candidates for the scheduled 21 April 2013 general election. An exemplary electoral process from the very start is critical to the country, which has been become something of a regional pariah following the lightening impeachment in June of the former president Fernando Lugo (2008-2012), which resulted in Paraguay’s temporary political suspension from regional blocs including the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) and the Union of South American Nations (Unasur, which groups all 12 countries in South America), on the grounds that the democratic order in the country had been ruptured.

Given these unusual circumstances, this early stage of the electoral process, which normally would not attract much international (or indeed domestic) attention, is being closely followed by the international community. As a result, the Paraguayan electoral authorities and political parties alike are under intense pressure and their behaviour in the coming weeks and months could have important consequences for the country’s regional and international standing.

Following Lugo’s historic electoral victory in 2008, when he unseated the Asociación Nacional Republicana-Partido Colorado (ANR-PC), which had been in power for over 60 years, the 2013 election was always going to represent another import step for democracy in Paraguay. It would either consolidate democracy with a smooth alternation of power, or result in a setback, with the ANR-PC making a swift return. However Lugo’s impeachment, which was entirely unforeseen by Paraguay’s regional neighbours, including Brazil, has resulted in even more importance being attached to the 2013 election.

Led by President Federico Franco, the administration that replaced the Lugo government has not been recognised by any of the other 11 Unasur member countries. Despite this, Paraguay was spared the prospect of total regional isolation after Unasur’s efforts to get Paraguay also suspended from the main hemispheric Organization of American States (OAS) failed to prosper, for lack of consensus. Unasur and Mercosur have each said that Paraguay’s suspension will only be lifted once “democratic order in the country is restored”, adding that the staging of free and transparent elections could facilitate this.

Thus a transparent electoral process, completely open to scrutiny by the entire international community, is in Paraguay’s best interest. Yet in an attempt to reassert its position the Franco administration, which rejects the argument that the impeachment constituted a break in the democratic order, is reluctant to invite Unasur electoral observers, alleging an inherent Unasur bias against the country.

Welcome & unwelcome observers

Unlike Unasur, which very deliberately took a decision not to engage with Paraguay until after the 2013 election, the OAS opted to actively cooperate with the local authorities, so as to help restore political stability and strengthen democracy. This was positively received by the Franco administration, which accepted the OAS offer of help and extended an invitation for it to send an observer mission to accompany the entire electoral process. The positive experience of the OAS’s first observer mission, sent to monitor the run-up stages, has increased the pressure on Unasur to revise its stance and send its own observer mission to the country to properly evaluate the electoral process [RBS-12-11].

The opportunity to send a Unasur envoy to Paraguay presented itself on 24 October, when upon his re-election as the head of Paraguay’s supreme electoral tribunal (TSJE), Alberto Ramírez Zambonini said that he would open the TSJE’s doors to all organisations interested in monitoring Paraguay’s elections, including Unasur. Two weeks later Ramírez Zambonini received a letter from the head of Unasur’s high-level group in charge of evaluating Paraguay’s political situation, the Peruvian Salomón Lerner Ghitis, in which he expressed his desire to conduct a visit to the country to evaluate the situation first hand. The letter irked the Franco government, which reiterated that it would not formally recognise or even meet with any Unasur official sent as an observer unless it first received some sort of “positive gesture” from Unasur.

Amid this uncertainty, Lerner Ghitis arrived in Asunción on 22 November. During his two-day visit he was not received by any government official, but he did manage to meet with Ramírez Zambonini and various other actors, notably including Lugo and members of his political umbrella group, Frente Guasú (FG). Before his departure on 23 November, Lerner Ghitis gave a press conference in which he said he would convey a “positive view” of the status quo in Paraguay in a report to be presented at a Unasur summit on 29-30 November in Lima, Peru. He said that would note in his report that the electoral process was advancing “normally and with calm”. Despite this, and to Paraguay’s frustration, Unasur failed to amend its stance on Paraguay at the summit, merely stating that it hoped to continue evaluating the electoral process and mooting the possibility of sending a full electoral observer mission to monitor the process.

Soon after Lerner Ghitis’s visit, the OAS dispatched the Nobel peace laureate and former president of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias (1986-1990, 2006-2010), to Paraguay, to lead the electoral observer mission. Arias arrived in Asunción on 28 November and explained that he had been sent down well in advance because the OAS wanted to closely follow all the developments on the ground, starting with the party primaries (see box) to make sure that democracy was being fully respected.

Unlike Lerner Ghitis, Arias has already been received by President Franco, who ensured him that his mission will have unrestricted access to all the political actors and relevant government institutions involved in organising the elections. Since then, Arias has met Ramírez Zambonini as well the president of congress Jorge Oviedo Matto. Echoing Lerner Ghitis, Arias expressed his satisfaction, saying the run-up to the elections was taking place with “absolute normalcy” , with all the political parties appearing to respect the established “rules of the game”.

On 4 December Arias began a series of meetings with political party leaders, starting with Lugo. Lugo expressed concerns about the electoral process: noting that the TSJE had not fully adopted all the OAS recommendations made after the 2008 elections, in particular the need to purge and update the electoral register. He also pointed out that the FG’s presence on the TSJE is small, compared to other parties and called for more international observers. Lugo told Arias that he “could not understand” why Unasur had not been invited to send an observer mission. Arias told Lugo that the OAS would take note of all his concerns and see if anything could be done, but downplaying these, he added that he had “confidence” that “the elections will be carried out peacefully and with transparency”. He added that to date the Franco administration had shown “commitment” to this task.

Primaries panorama

The first party primary is scheduled for 9 December, when ANR-PC registered party members go to the polls. This is bound to be one of the most contested primaries’; 47 different ANR-PC factions have presented candidates. However, the contest for the presidential nomination is a two horse race between Horacio Cartes, a business tycoon accused by Lugo of being one the main promoters of his impeachment, and a former Ciudad del Este mayor, Javier Zacarías Irún, an erstwhile Cartes ally. According to the latest national poll by Ati Snead, Cartes has 48.6% of voting intentions, just ahead of Zacarías Irún on 44.0%. The ruling Partido Liberal Radical Auténtico (PLRA) will hold its primaries on 16 December. The former public works minister, Efraín Alegre (2008-2011), had previously been selected as the consensus presidential candidate; but unexpectedly, other party leaders have now decided to challenge him in the primary. The FG will hold its primaries on 13 January when it is expected that Lugo’s preferred candidate, Aníbal Carillo Iramaín, will be chosen.  END BOX

• Unace

The Unión Nacional de Ciudadanos Éticos (Unace), a small right-wing party led by the retired General Lino Oviedo, will hold a primary in conjunction with Partido País Solidario (PPS) on 23 December. Tightly controlled by Oviedo, Unace has already announced that Oviedo will be its presidential candidate for a third time, but it had to agree to a primary in order to seal an alliance with the PPS. Nonetheless Oviedo will likely get the nod. On 14 November Oviedo announced that Alberto Soljancic, a former president of the powerful Paraguayan national rural association (ARP), would be his vice presidential running mate.

• Avanza País registers as a political coalition

On 25 November the TSJE announced that it had accepted the registration of ‘Avanza País’, a group of six political parties that broke away from Lugo’s FG, as a new political coalition. Avanza País split from the FG in October, after Lugo withdrew his backing for Mario Ferreiro as the FG’s presidential pre-candidate. Ferreiro, a popular TV personality who topped an FG poll of potential pre-candidates, was questioned by more radical FG members, who wanted either Lugo (who is constitutionally barred from seeking re-election) or his close aid, Sixto Pereira, to lead the presidential ticket. Avanza País will now be able to run its own slate in the 2013 race.